Was Uncle Junior Really Out of it This Whole Time?

One of the recurring themes of the market over the last few years has been the perennial underperformance by "junior" marquee issues, meaning they have institutional sponsorship for growth prospects but not nearly as much as, say, AMZN GOOGL. 

Specifically, the likes of LNKD P TWTR YELP have destroyed a fair amount of capital without batting an eye, even as the major averages made multi-decade and new all-time highs in recent years. This destruction occurred even as the premier leaders like AMZN FB GOOGL NFLX PCLN UA, among others, seemed nearly unstoppable at various junctures along the way. 

But we have seen subtle of late that perhaps the juniors may not be completely out of it, and still retain a glimmer of hope for longs who at least are not buried from tens of points above.

YELP gapped above its 200-day moving average after recent earnings, for example, and is now basing tightly below $26. LNKD is clearly still a broken chart but is trying to hold onto a long sideways base. Pandora has been basing for months and is trying to push above $11 now.

And TWTR, which we looked at this week several times, is up nicely today and is attempting a base bottom of its own at $14.

The bear retort is that we have seen this move before, we false bottoms/bases eventually settling up the next heartbreaking move lower. And that these stocks and firms all have tons of unresolved issues to fix before true health can be seen.

To be sure, calling major bottoms to these names is a task I am not interested in accepting. But they are acting much better, and they may be setting up for some early-summer fun before we even come close to examining the inevitable bottomed-once-and-for-all questions.